


Slow Blossom

by ThePeaPodinthePumpkinPie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Female Uzumaki Naruto, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8320216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePeaPodinthePumpkinPie/pseuds/ThePeaPodinthePumpkinPie
Summary: A female Naruto saves Hyuuga Hinata from bullies and is put into kunoichi arts classes.  This being Naruto, nothing goes quite as expected.  From there, events spiral into larger and larger differences.  FemNaruto.





	1. Chapter 1

1.

Hinata watched a ladybug crawl along the ground, curled up there in the grass, and pretended not to hear the jeering above her. It didn’t work, of course, but it was a valiant effort.

“Your eyes are really creepy.”

“Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you?”

The eyes were a sign of Hinata’s Hyuuga clan bloodline - it was not their violet-silvery color, but their lack of pupils, that inspired enmity. It made people feel off-balance, like they were never really sure if the person was looking at them or not. Creepy, some people called it.

They couldn’t take it out on any adult members of the prestigious Hyuuga clan, so they took it out on Hinata.

Her branch retainer guard was inside the long, rambling set of white plaster buildings with swirling red roofs off to their left. He’d stepped below the giant Fire Country symbol and disappeared inside the double doors, leaving Hinata to wander underneath the skeletal black oak trees in the snowy front courtyard of the place that was to be her new school. She imagined everything green in the springtime, snow no longer dusting the colorful swirls of the roofs.

No more tutoring, she thought. Meeting other kids now. Then the bullies had lumbered, swaggered toward her, and she’d felt dread form a hard knot in the pit of her stomach. They were older than her, and there was no reason for them to be here on sign-up day at the Konoha Ninja Academy other than that they were bored.

“Hey, freak! We’re talking to you.” She was brought back to the present by a kick.

There was a peculiar moment wherein Hinata felt like her heart had stopped. Her arm hurt. Her eyes stung and she wiped at them furiously. Tears were stupid. All she ever did was cry. It was why her father was always disappointed in her. Shy Hinata, weak Hinata, timid Hinata. Not worthy of the status of clan heiress, the Hyuuga elders whispered.

“Hey! Leave her alone!”

Hinata looked up and the boys whirled around. A girl was standing there, and she was not immediately intimidating, not obviously a hero. She was a tiny, pixie-like blonde with a cute round face and strange whisker cheek markings - perhaps from a clan? She was small and spritely, wearing ratty boyish clothes and a careless ponytail, and the fierce glare on her face was almost cute.

“Uzumaki,” one of the boys growled, clearing recognizing her.

“What’s wrong, Takeda?” the girl asked mockingly, getting right up in his face as if he was not bigger, older, and more experienced than her. “You and Thing One and Thing Two over there still trying to make up for your micro sized penises?” Hinata sucked in air softly at the crudeness. She wasn’t sure what she was more - terrified, or awed. Hinata herself blended in with winter; pale and dark-haired, she faded into the background. This girl gleamed like spring amid winter, golden hair shining and blue eyes fierce, cheeks flushed. When she spoke, she became what she had not been before - a presence, unordinary. “Kicking a defenseless little girl. That’s a new low even for you.” The girl’s tone was scathing.

Takeda and - it was now impossible not to think of them this way - Thing One and Thing Two on either side of him flushed. “What the fuck do you know about it, Uzumaki?!” Takeda shouted, taking a step toward her. She kneed him hard in the groin, her bent leg arcing out straight and hard, and he doubled over, letting out a sound that Hinata imagined was not unlike that of a dying hippopotamus. Then she punched him across the nose and he fell to the ground. He lay there unmoving. Blood leaked into the snow.

“And no great loss was made to the world that day,” said the girl sarcastically.

Then suddenly she darted outward, quick as lightning, and slid underneath the other two’s feet, tripping them and make them fall over. She sat on top of Takeda, her legs spread like a V, one on either Thing, and she pinned their arms behind their backs, twisting the arms so that they cried out.

“Surrender! I want to hear a surrender!” the girl shouted wildly. She gave off the impression of being slightly insane.

“Ugh - FINE! We surrender, we surrender!”

The girl stood up suddenly, matter of fact and all business, letting them go. “I tore my pants,” she observed. “See? And all this could have been avoided. My pants could be unmarked. Try not to kick any other little kids and I may consider not leaking it to the entire school that you just got the crap beaten out of you by an eight year old girl.”

The guys scrambled sheepishly to their feet and went to wake up Takeda. But he was unmoving. “Takeda! Takeda?!” They kept shaking him.

“Oh, please. Allow me,” the girl sighed at last. She grabbed some cold snow and shoved it down the front of Takeda’s shirt. He yelped and awakened, eyes springing open, scrambling to his feet. “Get your nose looked at,” said the girl stoically. “And get somewhere warm before you die of hypothermia.”

“Fuck you, Uzumaki,” said Takeda bitterly, stalking away with Thing One and Thing Two.

“I love you too, Takeda!” the girl called after him, hand to her mouth.

The girl turned around to Hinata and grinned, completely unafraid, or so it seemed, of Hinata’s eyes or social status. Hinata realized she had forgotten her misery entirely. “Don’t worry about them,” the girl said. “They used to pick on me too. Then one day I threatened to yell for their Mommies and they got scared and ran away. You can’t watch a guy get afraid about the wrath of his Mom and still look at him as fierce and unbreakable. Now I just picture them in pink Cupid underwear and that usually does the trick. You should try it.” 

Her tone was quite conversational.

“Th-thank you for saving me,” said Hinata, feeling very clumsy and shy as she rushed to her feet. “Not everyone would have.”

“Eh.” The girl shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. No one likes me either. All the adults hate me. Damned if I can figure out why.”

“My clan sees me as weak,” Hinata admitted. She wasn’t sure why she said it. She realized she had never told anyone this before. “And, I guess, so does everyone else.” Maybe she just gave off that open, apologetic aura. “Are you from a clan?”

“Me?” The girl barked out a harsh laugh. “Nah. I’m an orphan. I don’t know a single goddamn thing about my family.” She was carelessly foul-mouthed. “I know about as much about my parents as I understand why I’m hated - in other words, zip, zilch, nada. I used to have to live in one of those shitty little institutions. But now that I’m a training ninja, and since no one will take me in, I get my own apartment. Oh, yeah.” She grinned and nodded.

“Aren’t you nervous about being on your own?”

“Not really. I was already basically on my own and did everything for myself anyway. It’ll be nice having my full independence.”

“Is that why you became a ninja?” Hinata, the product of a wealthy and powerful but distant home, a huge clan compound, a dead mother and a stern father, was morbidly fascinated.

The girl twirled her hair around a finger, thinking. “Sort of, I guess,” she admitted. “I mean, that and I also want to prove everyone wrong about me. In a Hidden Village, the most respected people are ninja. And I want to be respected like that.” The honesty surprised Hinata, who was used to veiled looks and unintelligible implications and the pretentious, obsessive kind of philosophical Buddhism. “Why are you training to be a ninja?”

Caught off guard, Hinata answered too honestly. “Because I’m supposed to.” She immediately felt ashamed of her answer. That was what her father would be - ashamed.

The girl shook her head. “That’s no good,” she said. “You have to find a solid reason of your own to fight. What do you get enjoyment out of?”

“... Kindness,” said Hinata. “Helping people. Making pretty things. Weakness, in other words.”

“But that’s not weakness at all!” The girl’s eyes were big and round with surprise. “That tallies perfectly with being a ninja. All fighting is a kind of beauty, a kind of art. And being a ninja is all about protecting and saving your country and your village - in other words, helping people. Even when you fight with other ninja, you’re really helping them.”

Hinata was confused.

“Think about it,” said the girl. “Say you’re sparring with your best friend. Well, what if you don’t fight your hardest against her? And she goes out into the field, and the enemy does fight their hardest against her, and she dies?” Hinata’s eyes widened as she thought of her little sister, who she had never been able to seriously fight before. As a matter of fact, Hinata had never been able to seriously fight anyone before. “Now say you fight your hardest against your best friend. She goes out into that field prepared. See? So you really helped her a lot.

“And if she’s a true ninja, she’ll understand that.”

“If nobody likes you… and you have no family… how come you’re so open about yourself?” Hinata wondered. Maybe it was impolite to wonder, but this girl, so honest and impudent herself, seemed to invite honesty. There was something about her that unlocked the truer side of people.

“I made the decision a while ago to stop being a whiny pain in the ass,” said the girl in what Hinata was learning was typical casual bluntness. This girl. Who had good reason to be a whiny pain in the ass. Perhaps even more reason than Hinata. 

Hinata wanted to be like that.

The girl stuck out her hand and grinned again. “Uzumaki Kamaboko. Kama for short, because who names their kid Kamaboko anyway? Nice to meet you.”

Hinata smiled, and took the hand. “Hyuuga Hinata,” she said, with more confidence and cheer than she’d said anything in a long time. “Nice to meet you too.”

Just then, the parents started spilling out of the open doors like water rushing from a broken dam. “Oops! You shouldn’t be seen with me by your family. Just - pretend you don’t know me, okay?” Kama smiled mischievously, as if letting Hinata in on a special secret, and then she darted away to the nearby tree swing, dusting snow from the branches as she bounced onto the wood slab. She began swinging as if she had not a care in the world.

Hinata smiled, and looked away. Somehow, she got the feeling - or maybe the wish, the hope - that she had just made her first friend.

Watching for it now, she could see it. The cold and scathing looks, the whispers, the way the parents subtly guided their children by the shoulders away from Kama. Kama swung and smiled stupidly, swaying back and forth with her eyes shut, as if she could not see the world around her at all.

-

Hinata thought about Kama often, the memory keeping her warm even within the frigid estate of the Hyuuga clan, but she didn’t actually see Kama again until the snow had melted into spring and their first day at the Academy began.

Kama ran up to her on the first day, slipping through the crowds of students with their bookbags out in front of the main building, and she grinned. “Hey! Hinata-chan, right?” 

“Y-yes. Kama-chan,” said Hinata breathlessly, smiling, ecstatic that this bright, fascinating girl seemed to be taking an interest in someone as plain and uninteresting as her. 

It did not occur to Hinata until years later that Kama hadn’t known anyone on that first day either, that perhaps Kama, in some way, had been just as nervous and looking to cling to people she knew as Hinata herself. It certainly didn’t seem possible then. Kama glowed among the budding flowers and bright colors and wandering bees of spring, the sunlight shining down on the scene from clear blue skies and she the brightest thing in the entire courtyard, the epicenter, with that flashing gold hair and peachy skin and indomitable smile.

“Come on,” said Kama, playfully secretive, hooking an arm through Hinata’s. “Let’s walk together.” They strolled through the courtyard, and Hinata frowned as she heard comments in passing.

“Hey, look, it’s the Uzumaki kid. My parents warned me about her.”

“Yeah, people say there’s something wrong with her -”

“Wild, out of control. That kind of thing.”

Hinata frowned. “You really don’t know why people don’t like you?” she wondered. She’d thought several times of bringing Kama up to her father, but was strangely afraid to.

“No idea,” said Kama flatly. “And it really pisses me off.”

“Well, I like you,” Hinata decided, and Kama favored her with a smaller, perhaps truer smile. 

Their classroom ended up being set in ascending tiers, three three-person tables to a tier, sunlight filtering onto the space from windows on the left side, and Hinata and Kama made sure they sat together at a table on that first day. After that, their places beside each other at the Academy were assured.

But the stream of dislike continued in the form of their teachers. From day one, many seemingly mature adults appeared to specifically set out to pick on Kama, disparage her, yell at her, assign her detentions, send her away from class, or disinclude her in class discussions. 

Kama, never one to take such things lying down, rebelled by becoming a prankster. She put frogs in people’s coffee or tea, graffitied random places, set animals loose in important buildings, broke into homes and ninja lockers and laid the insides of ninja clothing with itching powder, put sharp pointy things in teacher’s chairs, and set little traps for unwary teachers, students, and random passersby. She would always deliberately make sure to get caught, laughing her ass off and then running like hell as furious (and very itchy) adult ninja ran after her. One time she got a prostitute to pose as a visiting speaker. Another time she somehow managed to dye every teacher’s hair blue at the same time. And yet another time she circulated photos all over the Internet of Mizuki-sensei asleep, in his own home, covered in silly string and paint.

Even Hinata didn’t know Kama’s secrets, though Hinata became her only friend and confidante.

Predictably, teachers threw up their hands in defeat. Students scathingly dismissed her, getting irritated at her antics. Parents said it was what they’d suspected all along.

“You know, Kama-chan, this is only making their opinions worse,” said Hinata worriedly.

“Yeah, but they’d say all that stuff about me anyway,” said Kama, shrugging. “At least now I’ve done something to deserve it. Look at it this way: I can either get insulted and do something about it, or I can do nothing and get insulted anyway.

“No one can appreciate my art,” she sighed, studying her fingernails. “But one day.” She clenched her hand into a fist, glaring ahead of herself. “One day, they’ll see.”

She even started wearing her blonde hair in long pigtails, a mischievous twist to her look that made her seem permanently, with her sharp incisor teeth and whisker face markings, like a mockery of an adorable little girl.

One teacher who seemed to take particular umbrage with Kama’s antics was Umino Iruka.

Umino Iruka was a normally kind, friendly young man with a ponytail of brown hair and a wide scar across the bridge of his nose from a childhood accident. He could be an excellent teacher when he wanted to be, but he was very idealistic - some might say rigid - and he seemed to take Kama’s pranks and acting out as a personal offense. He quickly took over catching her, punishing her, lecturing her, and yelling at her. He seemed to take perverse pleasure in allowing Kama’s increasingly angry antics to irritate him.

But the worst teacher, the worst of all, was Suzume.

To be fair, Suzume was the kunoichi arts teacher and Kama was horrible at the feminine arts. From the beginning, she was loud, clumsy, crass, and tomboyish. She forgot food was cooking, yelled out rude things at inappropriate moments, spilled tea all over her guests during tea ceremony, and in Suzume-sensei’s words, “had a total lack of proper decorum and dignity and a gross lack of patience.”

“You rush around doing everything!” Suzume cried one day, yelling at Kama in front of the whole class of girls. (This happened a lot to Kama.) “You will never be a proper woman and kunoichi!”

“Says the lady with the frizzy hair and the bug-eye glasses!” Kama yelled back.

It was a childish taunt, but Suzume-sensei colored and stiffened and a stifling, terrified silence filled the room. “You will be sent to a private kunoichi arts instructor,” she said at last, soft and cold. “I no longer want to deal with you.”

“Good, because I don’t want to deal with you either!” Kama, the only one not intimidated, stuck out her tongue.

-

Hinata was worried about her friend. The anger and acting out, perhaps she couldn’t help, but there was more - some of it she could help with. Kama was beginning to slack off in school, uninspired by the way it treated her, and her grades were beginning to slip.

Hinata, who was intelligent if nothing else, offered to help her study, but Kama dismissed the help in a rare show of depression. “Oh, what’s the use,” she muttered, waving a hand as if to stave off the impending spectre of the future.

Hinata hated seeing her friend so down, and was trying to find some way to inspire her.

Hinata thought about why she trained. Well, because of her clan. But Kama didn’t have a clan. She’d said so herself.

But - no, wait. Kama hadn’t said she had no clan. Kama had said she was an orphan. And those were different things.

So what if Kama… did have a clan? But just didn’t have any access to its secrets? The unfairness of this thought was the only thing that made Hinata contemplate doing what she did.

-

The clan archives were a magnificent set of buildings specifically dedicated to housing all clan information within Konoha. Only the heads and heirs to established clans were allowed inside. Konoha village was surrounded on all sides by forestry and then a great circular wooden wall with several guard towers. The clan archives was hidden within the forestry by the southwest tower. Hinata’s father had brought her once when she was very young, back before she had become known as a disappointment among the clan, holding her up so she could run her fingers along the tags hanging from different scrolls.

Hinata entered the concealed building entrance - being paused by a security guard in a dark leaf green flak vest - getting a chakra scan - “You may enter,” said the guard at last, and Hinata entered the clan archives, a large dim library-like room with circular windows high up on the walls, light glimmering through the dusty air.

Hinata went past vast walls of scrolls and immediately to the “U” section for Uzumaki. Sure enough, she found scrolls - loads of them. Now here was the trick.

Hinata was very crafty. She was good at arts and crafts, and she’d created stickers that perfectly resembled the Hyuuga clan seal. Hidden away at a back table, she covered all Uzumaki clan seals with the seal bearing the Hyuuga crest. Then she walked out with her arms full of scrolls.

“Hinata-san!”

Hinata froze.

“Taking an interest in clan techniques, I see.” The guard smiled. “Good for you.”

Hinata looked back and smiled uneasily, relieved. “Th-thanks.”

-

“You’re amazing, Hinata-chan!” said Kama in awe, staring down at the mass of scrolls inside her apartment. “You’re sure these are all for me?”

“Kama-chan, I looked the Uzumaki up,” said Hinata intently, “in our history books. They were a foreign clan in Whirlpool Country; they were destroyed in the Third Ninja War. Uzumaki Kushina, a refugee, was the only survivor in Konoha when you were born several years ago.”

Kama looked up, her eyes wide and, for once, perhaps vulnerable.

“Uzumaki Kushina was married to Namikaze Minato, the Fourth Hokage, leader of the village at the time. They were both legendary ninja. Your father was known as the Golden Flash because of his golden hair, your mother as the Red Hot Habanero because of her bright red hair. They both died on October 10, fighting off the fox demon attack - the same day you told me you were born.

“Kama-chan, look at the pictures of them.”

Hinata slid the book across the table. Kama looked at the pictures, and stared at them for a long time. “They look just like me,” she said quietly.

It was true. She had her father’s peachy skin, blue eyes, and golden hair. She had her mother’s cute round face and lovely, delicate features. Kama was a pretty girl, and so were her parents. 

“Uzumaki Kushina was not seen in public for months before the demon attack,” said Hinata. “There has been lots of talk, in books and otherwise. Everybody knows about it. Your parents would have had a great number of enemies. What if they were hiding your mother’s pregnancy with you, keeping it a secret until the time was right?

“The only thing I don’t get is why everybody would hate you.” Hinata frowned, troubled.

“Don’t you see?” Kama’s face was still blank. “I survived. My parents didn’t. Do you have any idea how willing these people would be to trade… my parents for me?”

-

So Kama had incentive now, to train as a ninja in the traditional fighting arts, and even the academic arts thanks to her mother’s clan’s apparent reliance on sealing techniques.

But when she went into her first tutoring session for what she had mentally termed Remedial How To Be A Woman lessons, she was skeptical.

Kama was seated before a neutral woman with a sleek bun of brown hair in a private Academy office. “My name is Ume,” the woman said. “Do you know why you are here, Uzumaki Kamaboko?”

“It’s Kama!” Kama glared suspiciously up at her new instructor. “Because I’m bad at being a girl.”

“No.”

“Because I don’t answer questions well.”

“That is also not it,” said Ume-sensei, ignoring Kama’s sarcastic smirk. “You are here because the Hokage assigned you to me. You are here because you need private instruction in the art of seduction - tricking men into doing your bidding.”

“That almost makes it sound fun,” said Kama dryly.

“Well, there are some parts of it that are not unlike the pranks you pull with your teachers,” said Ume. “Kunoichi lessons master the art of being beautiful, yes, but remember, kunoichi are ninja. We use our beauty for a specific purpose.”

“And that purpose is?”

Ume smiled slowly, her first true sign of emotion, and Kama swallowed.

“To get information from and kill men.”

“... But I’m not good at being beautiful,” Kama pointed out. “Suzume-sensei says so -”

“Suzume is impatient and she does not like you,” said Ume shortly. “I profess myself to be in more neutral territory. I do not like you, Uzumaki Kamaboko, but I do not dislike you either. To me, you are simply my student.

“Some students blossom slower than others, but all students have appealing characteristics about them. The trick is not to teach them to be appealing. It is to teach them how to show it.”

“... So show me!” said Kama at last, impatiently. “Show me these miraculous techniques to kill men!”

“Very well,” said Ume, nodding. “We begin with lesson one.”


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Kama trained in the private recesses of her crummy little apartment. The Hokage himself - a tiny old man, wrinkled and brown, with a silver goatee and a wood-pipe, who always smelled of smoke - brought checks over once a month, and he would never answer Kama’s insistent questions about her family, telling her only that “they died in the fox demon attack.” Which pretty much confirmed all of her and Hinata’s suspicions. 

“Your parents have to have been important. Why else would the Hokage himself assign you remedial tutors or bring over your money?” Hinata pointed out. “I’m not even sure he would have done that for me.”

But this meant one important thing: for some reason, the Hokage and the other higher-ups did not want Kama to know about her parentage. Why? So they could control her? Because they thought she would blab to other people? She didn’t know.

Kama thought a lot about her mother, as she looked over the Uzumaki clan scrolls - scrolls her mother must have either brought or made herself. Kama’s father was easy - he was born and raised in Konoha, gave a grand rise from obscurity to meteoric fame during the Third War, was made leader of the village because of his idealism, married a beautiful and powerful woman, and died heroically. He was simple, easy to imagine.

But the more she studied, the more she realized her mother’s story was much rockier, flooded with uncertainties. 

The Uzumaki were cousins of the Senjuu, the founding clan of Konoha and the sworn enemy of another powerful clan in Konoha known as the Uchiha. (Tsunade of the Sannin, a famous ninja, was the last Senjuu descendant, and she hadn’t had any children and had retired and left the village long ago. So Kama was also the last Senjuu.) The Uzumaki had founded their own village, Uzu, and were widely known and feared for their enormous power.

Uzumaki Kushina was brought to Konoha in a diplomatic gesture from Uzu, her home village. Torn from her family and her powerful clan as a child, she was thrust into a Konoha Ninja Academy class filled with people she didn’t know, people who had no concept of her clan’s importance. There were kidnappings and assassination attempts, mostly because of the famed Uzumaki power, and when the Uzumaki were decimated during the Third War by combined Suna and Iwa forces for being “too strong to keep alive,” Uzumaki Kushina must have suddenly realized that, the family she distantly remembered? They were gone. She was the only one left, the only known survivor.

There was so much Kama wanted to know about her mother. What did it feel like to be thrown into a new home and then find your old one had been killed? Did her mother feel lost? Despairing? Hopeful? But there were more questions. Her mother had according to all sources been rather unconventional: chatty, excitable, impatient, and short-tempered, a terror on the battlefield. What had attracted the famed Golden Flash to her? What had their marriage been like? They’d died defeating the Kyuubi demon - had they wanted to die together? Had her mother even wanted to die that night?

Kama had no answers, and it frustrated her that all the people who could give them to her did not want her to know this information at all.

So she trained in the privacy of her apartment. It was the only connection she had to her mother, and she felt an attachment to the memory of her mother that she did not feel for the memory of her father. 

Her father was distant and remote. She could look out the window and see him. A vast outdoor sandstone monument decorated with the former and current Hokages’ grim stone visages loomed from the center of the village, watching over Konoha, visible from anywhere within its precincts. Her father was that remote stone face staring down at the village. To all appearances, he’d led a dream of a life.

But Kama could understand her mother, or felt she could. Her mother, she thought, would understand loneliness, not having a family at a young age, feeling lost and alone, struggling to discover your own identity. Her mother, she thought, could understand being complicated, an untraditional woman in a homogenous society that did not value that. Uzumaki Kushina, too, had been alone and alienated.

Kama honored her memory in the only way she could: she trained.

-

The Uzumaki specialized in what was called the Water Weaving Fist. 

It was a taijutsu style centered around grace and speed. One flowed around the attacks instead of blocking them, never actually being touched once by the opponent. Attacks focused on quick touch and retreat - injuring nerve and muscle areas instead of hitting with brute strength.

Kama was not fast or graceful at first. The scrolls recommended she improve her speed through lots of running and hitting exercises, and her grace by balancing books on her head and then practicing moving like that, with her head and back straight, even when fighting or in her ordinary life.

She worked through countless kicks, punches, stances, and katas for hours upon hours, studying the scrolls and trying to copy what she saw. Slowly, her speed and grace improved as she transitioned smoothly between different moves.

She also, somewhat unknowingly, became more graceful in ordinary life.

-

“Lesson one is cooking,” said Ume-sensei. “You must learn how to cook a proper meal.”

“Can we make ramen?” Kama piped up. “That’s my favorite. I want to make ramen like they have at Ichiraku’s. That’s my favorite restaurant.”

“Ramen is one of the foods you will be learning,” said Ume-sensei stiffly, and her lips pursed when Kama started jumping up and down and cheering. “We should begin.”

Kama stopped jumping and scowled. This lady was no fun at all.

Ume-sensei was more patient with Kama than Suzume-sensei had been, though, more patient, indeed, than any teacher Kama had ever had before. She bought her a timer, and took her through each cooking technique and each kind of recipe until Kama had it down perfectly.

“The goal for you is to be able to regularly cook a good meal in your home,” Ume explained.

So Kama tried cooking in her own home, and she found it was infinitely preferable to all the instant crap and takeout she’d been eating before. One thing Kama loved was food, and she learned to find great joy in innovating recipes and finding just the right combination of foods to render a recipe perfect.

Under a more patient, understanding teacher, she flourished as a cook. She was naturally artistic and she loved food and those were really the only two qualifications, she found. She also learned how to make drinks such as coffee and tea.

Kama’s favorite foods became green tea and homey, warm, medicinal comfort foods, especially on a cold and rainy day. She liked soupy, home-made ramen with meat and cooked vegetables, and spicy, healing curry. Foods that filled the taste buds, opened up the sinuses, and made a person feel warm and good.

-

The second Uzumaki technique Kama learned was in ninjutsu. The Uzumaki had mastered many both wind and water ninjutsu. But they could do two unique things. First, they could use wind and water together, such as in their trademark Grand Whirlpool Technique. And second, they could pull water from the air. The Second Hokage was famous for this, but really, as a Senjuu, he’d just gone back to his Uzumaki roots.

The Uzumaki had lived on a coastal island surrounded by turbulent waters. They had an innate mastery of wind and water themselves.

So Kama had to learn wind and water ninjutsu separately, which was hard enough. She practiced pulling water from the air, and nothing happened, and tried pulling again, and nothing happened, countless times, until she was breathing hard and bathed in sweat from the chakra effort. When water finally appeared from the air one day, she started cheering - only to glare straight ahead of herself when the water immediately splashed onto her head.

So then she could practice wind and water techniques inside her own home. Her eventual goal was to master doing both of them together - she had her eye on that Grand Whirlpool Technique, a gale force whirlpool of water that appeared from high in the air and smashed into the victim.

The very idea made Kama give a slow, creepy smile not unlike Ume-sensei’s.

-

Her next kunoichi arts were flower arrangement and calligraphy.

For flower arrangement, Ume-sensei emphasized each girl finding her own way of arranging beautiful flowers.

“There is a certain skeletal structure each style of arrangement follows,” she said. “But what’s important to understand is that flower arrangement is an art. One must express oneself through the arrangement.”

Kama liked this idea, and freed from the confines of what an arrangement was “supposed to look like,” she formed her own style. It was loud, like her, filled with bright, vivid colors and happy messages and flirtatious shapes and designs and wild, avant-garde details that broke all the rules. Ume-sensei told her to pretend she was talking to a guy she liked - the arrangement should be displayed as how she would behave.

Well, Kama thought, she would probably just go up to the guy and say he was really hot and ask him if he wanted to kiss her. So her arrangements all kind of just assumed the guy was already attracted to her. Looking at a flower arrangement of Kama’s was like being kissed unexpectedly - she worked consciously for that kind of feel.

Calligraphy was harder. It required a kind of perfectionism Kama had never been good with.

So she made a mess of herself with the ink, smearing characters, getting shapes wrong. Ume-sensei scolded her many a time, Kama herself snapping back to hide her embarrassment. Once she’d gotten past that hurdle, however, Kama found that she was good at the creative side of things like calligraphy and ink painting.

She was good at saying what she wanted to say creatively. It just took her a while to understand and execute the perfection involved in the quick, untouched style that the art demanded. Ume-sensei pointed this out to her. “You’re impatient, not stupid,” she would say.

It was an important lesson for Kama, marking the first time someone besides Hinata had ever told her she wasn’t stupid.

She went on to enjoy messy regular painting, both on canvas and on the walls of her apartment, which was full of fresh, brightly colored flowers and newly stocked with food.

-

The Uzumaki bloodline was enormous chakra coils, great endurance and longevity, and enormously potent chakra. (On a more disturbing note for Kama, this meant they had always been high in demand in arranged marriages, a lack of independence or choice that kind of freaked her out.)

This meant they were capable of incredible ninjutsu advances at young ages - hence, the wind and water ninjutsu - but it also meant they had to master chakra control early on in order to do many ordinary ninja-related things. To that end, the scrolls taught her three chakra control exercises: tree climbing, water walking, and leaf bending.

One of the cool things the scrolls taught her was that once she could do those things, she could channel chakra into her arms and legs to make herself faster and stronger.

So she threw herself into chakra control exercise training, passing out repeatedly in her quest to master the exercises and control her chakra. It took her many a week to get the exercises down, even longer to integrate them into her ninjutsu and her taijutsu katas.

But the returns were worth it. All of a sudden, she was stronger and faster and better, and ordinary training didn’t tire her out as much anymore.

It was at this point that she also learned the healing-biting technique. The Uzumaki could bite themselves and chakra flooded their body so that they healed faster. They healed unusually fast for a ninja anyway, and this was good because it meant they only had to use the healing-biting technique in desperate circumstances. Too much flooding the body with chakra over a long period of time shortened the lifespan.

On a useful and interesting side note, other people could also bite an Uzumaki and powerful Uzumaki chakra similarly flooded their body, healing them.

-

“Fashion and beauty is an important aspect of seduction,” said Ume-sensei.

So she taught Kama about seasonal complexions, face shapes, and body types, and how to dress and cut your hair for them. Kama learned fashion and shopping could actually be kind of fun once you had the right information about it, finding just the right kimono, street clothes outfit, or kunoichi outfit to make a person look completely beautiful. This even extended to makeup and jewelry.

She formed her own kunoichi outfit, a tight little poison-orange kunoichi dress. It gave off the same “cute but deadly” aura that her long blonde pigtails and animalistic facial features did.

In addition to shopping, she learned to love scented stuff and nail art.

So in addition to being a good cook, Kama became excellent at putting her best foot forward - at looking beautiful. Her curving heart-shaped face, her spring complexion, her small and curvy body, they all factored into how she was supposed to dress and apply makeup in order to look good. She was also taught how to emphasize the sensual parts of a woman: neck, legs, breasts.

Kama’s beauty was deadly, her nails sharp and perfect claws.

-

Mind’s Eye of Kagura was an Uzumaki sensing technique. 

It involved taking their chakra and expanding it outward, so that it could feel far distances around itself and take in, in accurate detail, everything within that space of chakra. This could be used to see through genjutsu and techniques as well as to study and reveal the surrounding world. The older and stronger the Uzumaki, the wider their range was, but theoretically this could be used for tracking.

Now that Kama had mastered chakra control, Mind’s Eye of Kagura wasn’t hard, though as a child her range was somewhat limited. It was fascinating just looking at the surrounding world through this lens. She would go out into nature and sense what animals, for example, were within her surrounding environment, and what their makeup was.

Mind’s Eye of Kagura was practiced in small ways.

-

Her next kunoichi lessons were in Nihon Buyo dance and shamisen string playing.

Nihon Buyo dance involved twisting close to the earth, the body often in completely asymmetrical positions, the sensu fan waving as the dancer twisted and moved about. Each dance also told a story. A shamisen was plucked and the shamisen player sang to accompany the dancer, telling the story, explaining each movement and gesture that the dancer had to act out.

Kama was required to be able to perform both roles - the player and singer, and the dancer. Depending on what the situation called for.

Dancing was rather like Water Weaving Fist in its fluid grace from movement to movement, the elegant waves of the fan, the kimono swishing. Shamisen playing was like weaponry in that it formed hardened calluses, and putting her all into her voice and crying out in song was an incredible release.

Many of Kama’s extracurricular hobbies came to involve music and dance. She formed a love for pop and hip hop music, and she began going to karaoke nights and attending hip hop dancing classes.

Many places would not let her in, but Ichiraku’s started Friday karaoke nights just to let Kama have the chance to perform, the civilians Ichiraku Teuchi and his daughter Ayame (Kama’s big sister figure, Ayame-nee-chan) smiling and clapping along. Kama was a natural performer, playful; she loved being extroverted and having fun on a stage.

Ayame introduced her to a dance instructor she thought would help Kama along, without prejudice. The dance instructor stood in front of her, scowling, arms folded. She was a big older woman with frown wrinkles in her face.

“Why do you want to dance?” she said, revealing nothing.

“Because I want to express myself,” Kama said honestly. “And I’m learning I express myself best through art.”

That apparently was what the dance instructor was looking for, because Kama joined her curious, somewhat nervous classmates in hip hop dance. A couple of students were taken out by their parents. The fearsome dance instructor changed nothing.

Civilians, Kama thought, could be strong and kind too.

-

And finally, there came sealing, what the Uzumaki were most known for.

Seals were symbols imbued with chakra which could do specific things. Seal study was a large part of sealing, and Kama spent hours bent over paper with a cup of tea, scribbling down and memorizing different seals and complex seal formations, learning how to remove and create seals from scratch. Most seals focused on containment - such as in sealing scrolls, which could hold many kinds of weapons. She found that, far from being stupid, everything became demystified for her when it was visual and she could interact with it herself.

Seal study became a kind of puzzle, one Kama learned she was quite good at. She even began doing other kinds of puzzles, such as crossword and sudoku puzzles, to test herself further.

But when it came to fighting, there were what was called The 5 Points of Sealing:

\- Seal trap tags. Tags were hidden in surrounding underbrush and when the enemy entered them, they were suddenly sucked up inside the seals.

\- Containment/release seals - seals tattooed onto the palms to suck up and redirect attacks.

\- There were also chakra augmentation and suppression seals. Chakra augmentation seals were tattooed onto the Uzumaki. Meanwhile, the Uzumaki had to learn quick-touch give and removal seals, in order to be able to slap a chakra suppression seal onto someone just by touching them.

\- Adamantine Sealing Chains, chains made of the Uzumaki’s chakra that were capable of holding in any beings of chakra, including demons.

\- Seal Barriers, which were basically shields and domes made of chakra holding the Uzumaki behind or inside, safe from attacks.

Kama slowly tattooed more and more seals onto her body, as her sealing abilities became more and more intricate. She became somewhat addicted to sealing; it was a way of using her mind and chakra that she had never seen before.

-

“Tea ceremony is where it all comes together,” said Ume-sensei, “all the skills you have learned thus far.”

Tea ceremony was hard for Kama. Ume made her study Zen Buddhism and meditate before doing tea ceremony, and she hated sitting still and being peaceful - it went against her entire nature; she loved constantly moving from place to place - but then there was the tea ceremony itself.

There were a million little movements to memorize, and each one had to be done calmly and peacefully. Kama hated this. It took her a long time to understand the calm mindset both tea ceremony and Zen studies taught - years, in fact.

But once she did, she found a window into theories of death, rebirth, and morality, a kind of inner peace she hadn’t expected. Meditation came to be something she enjoyed, as did prayer, but only as she grew older.

-

Kama’s final lesson was in how to flirt with the man and get him to fall in love with her once she’d caught his attention. 

Kama was encouraged by Ume to cultivate a persona. Kama became bright, playful, and bubbly, more refined, flirtatious, and mockingly pouty. Hers was a cheerful kind of viciousness, one that was very effective in getting people’s attention.

Just with basic lessons in games, conversation, and flirtation, Kama would prove capable of pulling words and reactions even from the most taciturn man. She would say anything, do anything, and she wasn’t afraid of anyone. She had fun. She was one of those women it was not hard to fall in love with. She was chatty, happy go lucky, but she had a hard center. 

Kama became quite the budding seductress.

Ume, according to Academy regulation, made it sound like a girl just made the man fall in love with her, got information from him, and then killed him. But Kama wasn’t fooled.

It was also at this point she was given sensitivity training so she herself could avoid falling in love when she wanted to, and sex ed classes.

-

Kama and Hinata sparred together often.

They did other things, too. They went shopping together. They picked flowers together. Sometimes they had slumber parties with Ayame. But mostly, they trained and they studied.

Kama became an expert at evading Jyuuken attacks and Hyuuga techniques, becoming a good Water Weaver by force of having to deal with Hinata’s Gentle Fist all the time. Meanwhile, Hinata learned how to be stronger, harder, and faster in fights, having to deal with Kama all the time.

Hinata became a calm, quiet, confident girl.

Hinata also helped Kama train in other Academy areas, and in academic studies. Kama had particular trouble with academic studies, until Hinata and Kama discovered Kama was a visual and kinesthetic learner. Hinata then from there helped Kama learn how to study and learn in a way that benefited her and made her smarter. 

“It’s all about learning styles,” she said. “Sort of like how getting the right haircut is all about your face shape.”

Kama realized she learned by looking, imagining, and doing. Her grades quickly improved.

Hinata also pointed out to Kama that she didn’t need to “learn” strategy and psychology - she already knew it.

“What else are your pranks about, if not strategy and psychology?” Hinata pointed out, as Kama stared at her in surprise. “Just treat everything in the field like a prank - from traps to attacks - and you’ll do just fine.”

Iruka, Mizuki, and other teachers were privately surprised at the changes in Kama. Her different, more confident and girly persona, her higher grades and increased viciousness. Particularly as she never stopped being a troublemaking, playful prankster.

Hinata and Kama became inseparable twins around the Konoha Ninja Academy campus.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Taijutsu spars at the Academy were always exciting. All the students met in a wide dirt circle behind the main building, surrounding the two contestants in a crowd. The contestants flew at each other without head or hand gear, everybody else cheering and placing bets around them, stamping up and down and shouting and creating a cloud of dust around the spar.

Today, Kama was paired against the best in the class: “Uzumaki Kamaboko versus Uchiha Sasuke!”

“Good luck, Kama-chan,” said Hinata, as Kama stepped up to stand in the circle of students across from Uchiha Sasuke. All the girls were cheering, of course.

“No way she can beat Sasuke,” several people were heard to announce. Oh was Kama about to prove those people wrong in an unholy way.

Kama’s feelings toward Uchiha Sasuke were complicated. Reserved, pale, dark-haired, and handsome, Sasuke was very popular among the girls at the Academy. He was quiet and talented, with no expression but a kind of intensity to his coal-black eyes. Everyone either wanted him or wanted to be him. He knew this, and displayed it arrogantly like a row of his enemy’s teeth hung around his neck. He obviously took his popularity for granted, largely ignoring the people who admired him so much.

That, combined with their clans’ natural rivalry, kind of made Kama want to hate him.

So what was complicated about that? Well, Sasuke was also an orphan, and he also lived alone. His older brother had gone insane and decimated their clan before going on the run as a missing nin. Sasuke was rumored to have watched his family die. It was probably why he was such an asshole. He’d let his tragedy get to him, embitter him. Sasuke lived alone by choice. He’d refused all efforts to be adopted.

Uchiha Sasuke worked alone.

Kama faced him across the Academy spar grounds, and she wanted to punch him in the face, but she also wanted to tell him she understood. She was conflicted. “Combatants,” said Iruka, who was leading class that day. “Make the spar sign.”

They each did. Sasuke’s eyes were hard, determined, the slightest of frowns on his face.

“... Begin!”

Sasuke ran at Kama, and in an easy show of speed, she dodged around his punch. Sasuke’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second in surprise. Kama grinned and placed her hands on his shoulders, doing a handstand on top of him.

“Hello,” she said right up close to his surprised face. Then she tried to rip his neck sideways and kill him.

Sasuke went with the movement and let himself tumble over. Kama fell over with him, and he kicked her off of him. She slid away, and he got to his feet just in time to have her attack him full-force. He was kept on the defensive for a while, being pushed back and pushed back, dodging and blocking, before eventually she managed to press her foot against a pressure point behind his knee and he fell over, his leg numb.

Kama’s hand came arcing out toward his neck, he winced - and the knife-hand stopped, inches away.

She looked up at Iruka and he nodded, writing on his clipboard. “Kamaboko wins.”

As Sasuke stood up in slow, almost incredulous disbelief, whispers went around the circle. The cheering had abruptly stopped and all was quiet. How did she do that? the whispers said. How did she beat Uchiha Sasuke?

Kama grinned. “Gotcha,” she said. She put out her hand for the friendship hand sign. 

Sasuke was totally unsure how to react. Should he be angry? Respectful? No one had ever beaten him before. No one his own age.

At last, he put out his fingers and interlocked them with hers. His fangirls watched on, envious. “You did,” he admitted at last, smirking. “I hope we fight again sometime.”

Finally. Someone to challenge him.

-

Kama came up behind Sasuke, alone, as he was walking home from school that day.

“Kamaboko,” he said without looking.

“It’s Kama,” she said - almost cautious. “I prefer Kama.”

“I requested to Iruka-sensei that you and I be paired in Academy spars from now on,” Sasuke informed her coldly.

“I know,” she said. “He told me.” For someone who was usually so expressive, it was impossible to tell what she thought.

“Is that what you’re here about?”

“No,” she said, surprising him. “I have no problem with that. Hey… the way you fight…” 

“What about it?”

“You’re always thinking about someone. Someone you hate. When you’re fighting. Who is it?”

Sasuke paused and stared at her in surprise. “... How do you know that?”

“Because a lot of people don’t like me,” said Kama honestly. “And you look at me the way they look at me. Only way more intensely. And it’s like you’re somewhere else. Somewhere different. Like it’s not really me you hate. You’re thinking of somebody else besides me.”

“... There’s a man I have to kill,” he said at last.

“Is it your brother?” Sasuke stared again. “Sasuke,” said Kama, unusually softly, “everyone knows.” For the first time since it had happened, Sasuke could not meet someone’s eye. He looked away.

This Uzumaki girl. People called her stupid. She wasn’t. She was probably more observant than their teachers.

“I was crying…” he said at last, lost in memories. “That day…”

“I used to cry a lot.” Sasuke looked up in surprise. Kama’s eyes were tender, understanding. “Like you, I’m also an orphan. None of the adults like me. Nobody ever wanted me. There’s a difference between me and you - You lost people. For a long time I didn’t have anyone worth losing. It was really lonely.” She smiled, tears springing to her eyes, pained. “I have friends now, but it took me a long time to get them. That’s what it’s like for you, right? You’re singled out and you don’t have any friends. You’re alone.”

“The isolation…” Sasuke admitted. “It’s terrible.”

“Yeah,” she said gently, as if she understood. “It is.”

Sasuke felt peculiar - warm and understood. Validated. “I don’t have friends,” he said abruptly, and she paused in surprise. “I’m a genius and an avenger. Other people hold me down. Everyone’s afraid of me -”

“I’m not.” He blinked at her blunt honesty.

At last he gave a small smile. “I know you’re not,” he said, amused. “That much is obvious. I don’t need a friend. What I need is a strong person to help me get stronger - strong enough to avenge my family and kill my brother - a rival.”

Kama smiled. “So you’re saying you want to be rivals?” Her blue eyes sparkled in amusement - shone the way they had when she’d thrown herself, fiery, into the spar. As if she understood something, or realized something, that he didn’t. As if…

As if she had him, again.

“Yes,” he said at last. “Rivals.”

She stuck out her fingers in response. He stuck out his own, and their fingers wrapped around each other’s. He pretended they were shaking on rivalry.

It was, of course, called a friendship symbol.

-

Iruka gave a lecture one day that Kama never forgot. 

“The Will of Fire,” he said, “is a Konoha philosophy that encompasses many things. It is the belief that we are ninja to protect our home and our loved ones. That all Konoha ninja must help each other out whenever possible. That killing must only be done when absolutely necessary.

“Konoha is unique in its idealistic philosophy.

“The Hokage holds the entire village on his shoulders. He is the embodiment of the Will of Fire. He is elected by popular vote as the best and strongest our village has to offer. The Will of Fire lives on in all of us, but most especially in him.”

Kama went up to Iruka after class that day, her mind spinning. “Iruka-sensei… the Hokage… he’s the most respected ninja in the village, right?”

Iruka frowned suspiciously, almost scolding her. “Of course, Kama, why?”

“Just asking,” said Kama, turning around and walking away suddenly. She ran up to Hinata on their way off campus and declared, “I’m going to be Hokage one day! That’s how I’ll make everyone recognize me! As Hokage!”

“You can do anything you choose, Kama-chan,” said Hinata automatically. “But you know, a woman’s never been Hokage before.”

“So? If a woman’s never been Hokage before, I’ll be the first,” Kama announced, tossing her head and marching firmly off campus.

-

Hiashi watched his daughter Hinata knock Hanabi down for the third time on the clan sparring mat. Hinata then showed Hanabi the correct way to do the move, and Hanabi copied her. Hinata had been beating her younger sister often lately. Having a spar to decide who became clan heiress became less and less necessary. Hinata, with her increased quiet confidence, had become the obvious choice.

But today, Neji stood furiously. “How?!” he demanded of Hinata, and all eyes turned to him. “How did you change?! People do not change!”

Neji had to believe people did not change. He was stuck in one rank within the clan himself, as a branch retainer. He often espoused a great belief in fate.

Hinata walked up to her cousin, so much lower than her, and whispered something in his ear. No one except Neji heard what she said.

The whisper was, “I promise to destroy cursed seal and branch family practices as clan head.”

But no one else heard that. Everyone was just very impressed that with a few simple words, Neji’s eyes widened and then hardened in determination. He eventually became Hinata’s fiercest guard and advocate. 

This was the Hyuuga way. 

“Hinata,” said Hiashi reservedly, and Hinata turned to him. “Meet me in my office.”

-

Hinata slid the shoji screen and knelt before her father on the tatami mats.

“I, too, am curious, Hinata,” Hiashi admitted. “What has wrought such a change in you?”

Hinata paused, hesitant and conflicted for the first time in a while. “... You’re not going to like it, Otou-sama,” she said at last.

“I will appreciate anything that has helped my daughter grow,” Hiashi promised.

Hinata paused. “... I have been sparring with Uzumaki Kamaboko.”

Anger and fear flared instinctively within Hiashi’s heart.

“Father, please hear me out!” said Hinata, urgent and stricken. “You must hear how people misjudge her, what she has done for me!”

“... Very well. Begin,” said Hiashi.

And Hinata began. She talked and talked at great length about her friend, and after a while a picture of Uzumaki Kamaboko emerged - a very different picture from what Hiashi, a member of the council, had expected.

“... Invite her over,” he said at last, when Hinata had finally finished. “I will meet this girl and decide for myself whether or not you are deluded.”

People would talk, Hyuuga Hiashi allowing the demon girl into his compound.

Hiashi privately thought they could all go fuck themselves.

-

Uzumaki Kamaboko was surprisingly respectful, kneeling beside Hinata at the low-set table, quiet, during dinner.

“You do not speak much, Uzumaki Kamaboko,” said Hiashi. Everyone else was watching Kama curiously.

“I prefer Kama, Hiashi-san,” said Kama. Not sama. San. She smiled with a frigid kind of sarcasm. “Please instruct me as to what you would like most to hear.”

Hiashi watched her for a while.

“You get good grades,” he said at last. “You aspire to be a female Hokage, yes? A lofty and noble aspiration.”

“I suppose,” said Kama, chewing.

“You suppose?” Hiashi lifted an eyebrow.

“I do not think very much as to whether my aspirations are lofty and noble or not,” said Kama bluntly. “I simply do them.”

“... Said the successful person,” said Hiashi at last, and Kama looked up in surprise. “You have done my daughter well. You are welcome among us in the Hyuuga clan, Uzumaki Kamaboko.”

Kama’s eyes widened, and then she smiled.

-

Kama became a regular fixture in the Hyuuga clan compound, and she visited Hiashi’s office often. From the Hyuuga, she gained a love of gardening - window gardens and potted plants soon filled her small apartment, reminiscent of the Hyuuga’s magnificent compound garden - and of books, after she took to looking through the shelves of tomes in Hiashi’s office. Paging through books and immersing herself in other worlds, even in public, became one of Kama’s favorite pastimes.

She was also introduced to the concept of ASMR with the Hyuuga, who valued all kinds of meditation and quiet relaxation and thought Kama dearly needed some. (One could always tell when she was entering the compound; shouts followed her.) Inspired, she soon started her own ASMR vlog, full of sweet smiles and soft, breathy whispers and bowls of sweets and fingernail tapping sounds. Some nice older Hyuuga branch women even taught her massage to incorporate into her videos.

She never did stop being loud and chatty, though.

Hanabi looked up to Kama as much as Hinata did, maybe even more so. Neji’s reaction was more complicated. He found Kama a bit wild, but at the same time he had deep respect for her. She confused him. Eventually he decided to see her like Hinata, as a younger sister figure, a kind of companion for the clan heiress.

He was not alone in this. Kama also confused her teachers and her classmates at the Academy. She was a wild card, unpredictable. No one was quite sure what to think of her.

Among the villagers, feelings were still more clear. Kama started experiencing sexual harassment - men wolf whistling, grabbing at her as she passed in the streets. She ignored it calmly and cheerfully until it got to the point where she had to rip somebody’s arm out of their socket. Then she did that.

“Look at those wrap-around legs!” some stupid teenage boy cried as she passed one day. For some reason she was seen as exotic.

“Take a good, long look, because they’re never wrapping around you.” Kama smirked.

Monster, people called her. Yet some people were apparently strangely attracted to monsters.


End file.
